The influx of construction workers in huge batches in overloaded vehicles from Jammu and other parts of the country into Kashmir valley shows that government penalises lockdown violators on it’s own whims and wishes and not on it’s own covid guidelines and travel restrictions on travelers from other parts of the country. While people in Srinagar and most of the towns of Kashmir valley are being penalised day in day out and illegal structures are being demolished amid covid lockdown by the authorities of civic bodies in cooperation and coordination with police department, the construction workers from other parts of the country are being allowed to travel to Kashmir in overloaded vehicles amid an unprecedented spike in the ongoing fresh strain of covid -19 pandemic. The free movement of construction workers from other parts of the country to Kashmir valley shows that government has not taken any lesson from the highly controversial decisions on the operation of tourist activities in the beginning of April month this year in Kashmir valley. Even naives can understand that allowing constructions amid continuing spike in the fresh strain of covid-19 pandemic is in no way different from the arrival of tourists allowed from other parts of the country to Kashmir in the beginning of the April month this year. The lockdown won’t obviously serve any purposes if it is selectively used against locals populations of Kashmir valley and not against the construction workers travelling from other parts of the country amid continuing dangerous wave of the ongoing strain of the pandemic and fear of a third wave of the pandemic any time in next few months. Interestingly the intensity of the ongoing spike in the current strain of covid-19 pandemic is much higher in construction zones in Budgam and Srinagar than in non construction zones of Kashmir Valley. Worth mentioning is the fact that testing is not as much aggressive this year as it was last year despite the fact that the intensity of the current strain of the pandemic is much higher than that of the last year.
Human wisdom demands that government enforces lockdown as strictly over the travelers from other parts of the country as it is enforcing here over the hapless population in Jammu & Kashmir. Violations of lockdown norms would only further deepen the crisis of the ongoing strain of the pandemic in Jammu & Kashmir but won’t reduce it keeping in view the experiences of it’s spread in other parts of the country.
Knowing that issues of the availability of oxygen concentrators and ventilators in government run hospital has resulted in an unprecedented rise in the no of the deaths of covid patients across the country the government should have shut all the doors of the public movement from other states neighbouring Jammu in view of high intensity of the current strain of the pandemic there. Human wisdom demands that government enforces lockdown as strictly over the travelers from other parts of the country as it is enforcing here over the hapless population in Jammu & Kashmir. Violations of lockdown norms would only further deepen the crisis of the ongoing strain of the pandemic in Jammu & Kashmir but won’t reduce it keeping in view the experiences of it’s spread in other parts of the country.
